brianna

I have two computers, a laptop and a desktop. I recently moved across the country and switched from cable internet to dsl. my laptop works great but the desktop is horriblly slow. It runs things like IM just fine and loads some websites quickly, some very slowly and some not at all (for instance: if i ping yahoo.com i get a great speed, if i ping msn.com everything times out). I've checked the computer for spyware and adware and did a dump of my cookies and such all to no avail. i'd really appriciate some help.

Lasereth

Are any of the computers running a P2P program? I've noticed the following trend on every DSL setup I've ever seen: if the upload speed on P2P programs is set decently high then one computer on the network always gets crapped out of upload speed, therefore slowly down websites to a crawl. Other than that, I'd say it's time to format!

-Lasereth

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"A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert

brianna

I don't think that either computer is running a P2P though honestly i don't know enough about networking to say for sure. the speed on the desktop doesn't seem to very at all when the laptop isn't connected so i'm guessing this is not the issue.

honestly i'm not completely against reformatting but i'm also not convienced that it will solve the problem -- and if i go through all of that trouble and still can't connect properly i'm going to be annoyed!

poking around online the only thing i can find that seems like it could be related is having the wrong mtu settings but i find this dubious as well.

piesen

I battled your problem for awhile there were even websites I could not see and even some account pages took 4ever and then crapped out, I then changed IP Company and things got normal the instant the new IP took effect, Funny enough Verizon supplied the DSL connection in both cases.
But I switched to Cable for better pings for gaming.

theFez

ping has unfortunatly become a pretty unreliable method of testing connectivity. Because some DDOS attacks a couple years ago were ping based, many ISP's have disabled ping all together. even if your isp allows it, if it crosses the network of someone who has disabled ping it dies out there. this is espescially true or obvious with traceroute.

but, if you get the same response times pinging your default gateway, it would seem like the problem is beyond your network and resides with your DSL provider or beyond. May be time to call tech support.

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brianna

i called tech support and since my laptop is working their response was "yeah well must be your computer, not our problem." which i'm somewhat inclined to agree with -- it must be an incorrect setting somewhere but i have no clue where....

gariig

I'd start at http://www.dslreports.com/tools and try out their diagnostic tools. It's a good place to get your computer tweaked. Next place would be tweakxp.com for some more networking tweaks (assuming you have XP). Hope one of these helps. Also, I'd try a firewall like Zone Alarm (just google it, I'm lazy) and see if apps are accessing the network a lot.

brianna

i can't use the dsl tools because my computer will not access that site. i already have zonealarm installed, when i look at the log nothing looks out of sorts (though admitedly i know very little about what this log should look like) -- nothing seems to be asking for access more often then it should be.

Ultimate_Gohan

I had that same problem a long time ago. I was on dial-up and at the time(3-5 yearsago),
I could only access certain sites and some sites would not come up like microsoft.com to look for help because I thought it was a windows issue. I am good with computers and when I couldn't do it I seeked proffesional help. They couldn't fix it either. How did I fix it? I used the restore cd's that came with that old computer. As soon as I did that, it worked. Of course reformating the hard drive erased every thing so you might want to start backing up your data and try a reformat if you havent already.

soopafreek

are you using any adblocking --- either through your router, firewall, browser (i.e. - firefox's adblock extension), or through a customized hosts list?

maybe try turning off any of that. i know that when i block (ad) sites at my router, the sites that rely heavily on the ads from such sites load slower...

just a thought.

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aaarrrrrgggghhhh!!!!

brianna

nah no ad blocking really and it's not generally adheavy sites, thanks though.

theFez

keep in mind that getting the help you want out of tech support is usually dependent on the information you DON'T give them as well as the information you do. tech support looks for the easiest way to close thier tickets, whether or not the problem is solved.

my laptop is a dual boot with SuSE linux and win xp pro. anytime i have to deal with dell tech support i have to lie about it. any problem that may occur with the machine their solution is to uninstall linux. even though i think it helps diagnose hardware problems (i.e. when the monitor stopped working it stopped under both os so i was pretty sure it was hardware)

shouldn't have told them the laptop was working

are the ping times from each machine to the default gateway consistent?

It really sounds like spyware to me, slow performance, some sites not working, stuff like that. what did you do to scan for spyware?

did you try shutting down the firewall too?

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AxelF

I would also go for turning off zonealarm while testing, and everthing else too like antivirus and automatic update.
If you moved, your IP's and such are new and maybe something needs to be reset because of that (in firewall or router?). Maybe reinstall zonealarm to start from scratch with it?
Forget MTU, that's for fine tuning.
Check out the Status -Support -Information on your connection in your Network Connections, in the Control Panel. Compare your computers. Read it out to your ISP.

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Coffee

brianna

probably true -- i could maybe go back and lie to them, but i just don't think the're going to be much help either way.

yeah the DNS matches and it's set to auto obtain and ip.

i used adaware to do a spy test -- it's not the latest version, though getting the latest version with limited internet is a bit tough -- though i'll try to do an update through the laptop.

the only firewall i have is zonealarm and shutting it down does nothing.

brianna

yeah everything in the network properties matches up. i'll give the zonealarm reinstall a try though it's also going to be a huge pain with limited internet.

theFez

if your LAN works fine and your laptop connects fine, network the machines use the laptop to download then just transfer files across.

or download to the laptop and burn a disc (if the laptop has a burner of course)

or use a usb mini drive if you have one. 64 mb should be plenty to move a couple files across.

i have found that adaware alone doesn't get all the adware. used in conjunction with spybot it gets most stuff though.

i wouldnt bother reinstalling zonealarm until you get the throughput problem solved. just uninstall or disable it. the less stuff in the way of your internet connection the better while trouble shooting this.

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gariig

Format and reinstall windows? Every so often you just need to do this.

brianna

ok, i updated adaware and ran it and spybot and while both found a couple of things the problem has not been eliminated. It's rather odd since internet tasks outside of the web mostly seem unaffected (ie im works, downloading updates for adaware works) it's just that most webpages either will not load at all or load very slowly (i've tried using both IE and opera, both have the same issue).

I have considered reinstalling and if it comes down to it i will do that, however since nothing outside of the internet seems wrong with the computer (and since reinstalling is a big pain in my ass) i'm a bit reluctant to go that route without first exploring all other options -- i would hate to go through a complete reinstall and still have these issues.

AxelF

Probably not the fault but check this:

In "C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc"

Open the file hosts (no file extension) in notepad.
The only row without a #-mark (comment) should be:
127.0.0.1 localhost

This file can be used to redirect traffic. Some put IP's to advertising servervs in there to stop that traffic. Any errors in it could stop pages from working, but hardly slow them down though.

When you have a problem with a certain webpage. Can you get that page quickly from the laptop while your stationary still is waiting?

And what did you intend to say here:
"the speed on the desktop doesn't seem to very at all when the laptop isn't connected so i'm guessing this is not the issue"

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Coffee

brianna

just that i doubt that the laptop is pulling access from the desktop... yeah this makes no sense maybe i was on crack when i typed it.

brianna

I'm not completely clear on what you ment here but

127.0.0.1 local host
appears on the first line -- after that there are a bunch things like:

127.0.0.1 ad.dk.doubleclick.net

sort of entries -- i don't know if this is something to be concerned aobut or not, it sounds like spyware.

yes no problem loading anything on the laptop ever.

theFez

unless you have other computers on your network that need to know about each other, try deleting every thing but the localhost entry out of that host file and see if that helps.

also, never hurts to change the name of the original file (save as) so if you hose something you have the original.

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AxelF

Yeah, you can take away everything after the '127.0.0.1 local host' line.
Only bad thing with that is that you will see more ads.
VERY unlikely that your home network uses that file anyway.
Make a copy first if you feel like putting that back.

Looking at what soopafreek said above, it may actually help.

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Coffee

AxelF

If above doesn't help...

You run two computers on you modem. So you have a routern then, right? What brand and model is that?
Any other hardware part from your modem, router and 2 computers?

I assume you are running WinXP, have you upgraded to SP2? Make sure when you run zonealarm that the Windows firewall is turned off (even in SP1).

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Coffee

brianna

i have already turned off everything on the computer (ad blocking, firewall, macfee, etc) and it doesnt seem to help matters.

I havn't had a chance to delete the extra lines in the hosts file -- i'll try that tonight.

i have a dsl modem (westell 2200) and a wireless router (netgear MR814 v2) -- the desktop is connected to the router by a wire (not attempting to run the desktop wireless). I;m actually not running XP on the desktop -- it's a windows 2000 machine.